Manu Joseph’s second novel THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE has been shortlisted for the Hindu Prize, which he previously won in 2010 with his first novel SERIOUS PEOPLE. His new novel has also been longlisted for the 2014 IMPAC Dublin Literary award.
The 2013 Hindu Prize shortlist consists of five books, featuring writers Sonora Jha, Amandeep Sandhu, Anees Salim and Manjul Bajaj, as well as Manu Joseph. The winner will be announced on 13 January, 2014, during The Hindu Lit for Life Festival in Chennai.
The IMPAC Dublin longlist features writers Colm Tóibín, Hilary Mantel and Richard Ford. The shortlist will be announced on 9 April 2014, with the winner announced on 12 June 2014. There is a prize of €100,000 for the winning writer.
THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS is also longlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian literature. The shortlist will be announced at the London Schook of Economics on the 20th of November. Thereafter the final winner would be announced at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in Jan 2014.
Set in Madras in the 1990s, where every adolescent male is preparing for the toughest exam in the world, THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE is a powerful and darkly comic story involving an alcoholic's probe into the minds of the sober, an adolescent cartoonist's dangerous interpretation of absolute truth, an inner circle of talented schizophrenics and the pure love of a 12-year-old boy for a beautiful girl.
THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE is published by John Murray in the UK, Norton in the US and HarperCollins in Canada and India. Earlier this year it was a Top Ten bestseller in Holland, where Podium publish, and it has just been released as a lead title for C.H. Beck in Germany.
Manu Joseph’s first novel, SERIOUS PEOPLE, won the Hindu Best Fiction award, and was shortlisted for various prizes including Man Asian Literary Prize and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. Later this month he will be in Belgium, with events including a public interview in Leuven on 26 November and a Reading Club in Passa Porta on 28 November.
Praise for Manu Joseph:
'Manu Joseph really is a fine storyteller. His narrative is rich with detail.' - Antara Dev Sen, The Asian Age
'Manu Joseph is brilliant' - Tom Sutcliffe, BBC Radio 4
'A searing new voice.' -- Megan O'Grady, Vogue
Praise for THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE:
'A cocktail of character, culture and religion … exquisitely phrased without an excess of sentimentality.' -- The Daily Telegraph
'Tense and intriguing … [with] striking observations… THE ILLICIT HAPPINESS OF OTHER PEOPLE is an engaging read that leaves readers with plenty to think about afterwards.' -- David Hebblethwaite, We Love This Book
'Both wittily funny and darkly serious.' -- Harry Ritchie, Daily Mail